Romney is running neck-and-neck with Obama in national opinion polls but needs to make up ground in several battleground states where the election is likely to be decided.

The former Massachusetts governor appeared side-by-side with Rubio at a news conference where Romney did most of the talking. They then held a town hall event and took turns answering questions from supporters.

Romney brushed off two questions from reporters whether Rubio was on his list for potential vice presidential picks, a process that will play out over the next four months ahead of the Republicans' August convention in Florida to nominate their candidate to face Obama in the November 6 election.

"The process for selecting a vice presidential running mate is just beginning," Romney said.

He noted that longtime aide Beth Myers has begun to put together a system for checking out possible nominees and reviewing tax returns and other background material, "but we really haven't had a discussion yet of putting together a list or evaluating various candidates."

RUBIO IS COY

Rubio, 40, has lately sounded coy about the idea of a vice presidential nod after ruling it out repeatedly in the past. Conservatives speak warmly of the idea and Romney advisers say he will be considered, but some Republicans voice worries he may simply be too young for the job.

Rubio, asked whether he had the experience necessary to serve as vice president, would not comment. "I'm not talking about that process any more," he said.

Obama leads Romney among Hispanic voters by a whopping 40 percentage points, putting pressure on Romney to take steps to reduce that margin and make himself more competitive in states where the Latino vote could be decisive, like New Mexico and Nevada.

Very VERY bad thing. Rubio rings nothing to the table except looking like a token. While it isn’t the central issue, there is no possible way to win with ZERO Foreign Policy experience from both candidates. It doesn’t need to be much, but you gotta have some.

She did, but ya never know. THAT would be a great choice, BUT ... I fear that anyone associated with Romney, after the shellacking he is going to take in the General, is going to ruin their future political career on a National level. I’d rather see her sit back and jump in after 2012.

Hence my question in #1. Could his getting the nod force the issue into the national conversation, or would it be a way for the GOP-E to help make the two-citizen parents requirement go away permanently by establishing (twice-over) precedent?

But, Rubio added, “I think that the law has potential unintended consequences and it’s one of the reasons why I think immigration needs to be a federal issue, not a state one.”

More specifically, Rubio said, “Everyone is concerned with the prospect of the ‘reasonable suspicion’ provisions, where individuals can be pulled over because someone suspects that they may not be legal in this country. I think over time people will grow uncomfortable with that.”

On the prospect of suspects showing documentation to police to prove they are legal, Rubio said, “That’s not really something that Americans are comfortable with, the notion of a police state.”

the rino’s are involved in the commie coverup also. They distributed “talking points” to other rino’s to respond to birthers and the commies ineligibility. The rino’s know that rubio and jindal do not qualify but the “agreement” was if they let the commie alone, the commies will leave the rino’s alone.

I will not prostitute my reasons against Obama’s eligibility with a vote for a person I believe is in the same eligibility boat as Obama. Romney and his enablers haven’t even convinced me that the Constitution is more important than moneybags. I will find a place to put my vote and it will not be a waste of my personal freedom or conscience.

"More specifically, Rubio said, 'Everyone is concerned with the prospect of the reasonable suspicion provisions, where individuals can be pulled over because someone suspects that they may not be legal in this country. I think over time people will grow uncomfortable with that.'"

I thought that the Arizonal law just said that people's residency/citizenship status could be check in the course of a stop for another matter? I don't recall language allowing for pulling people over for "driving while brown" or somesuch.

On the prospect of suspects showing documentation to police to prove they are legal, Rubio said, Thats not really something that Americans are comfortable with, the notion of a police state.

He is right on the above statement.

But rather than jumping on the Left’s race baiting band wagon against the State of Arizona, he should have critized Obama for not protecting the State from the illegal invasion. He betrayed everyone by joining up with the open border, one world internationalists to shout down Arizona.

Birther arguments have been rejected everywhere - by every court, by every reputable conservative legal foundations, by virtually all serious/influential conservative leaders, and by near every significant conservative commentator/analyst. Mark Levin is a constitutional scholar and, along with most other radio talk show hosts, has banned birthers from wasting his airtime. There is a reason goofballs like Orly Taitz have to represent the birther cause, and that is because few if any serious people are going to waste time on an obviously silly argument.

I dunno. Some guy told me you have to have to have to parents who were US citizens to be a Natural Born Citizen. He used lots of legal terms and cited court cases, so he must know what he’s talking about. He also told me there is no legal obligation to pay income taxes.

43
posted on 04/23/2012 5:32:21 PM PDT
by Hugin
("Most time a man'll tell you his bad intentions if you listen and let yourself hear"--Open Range)

Just to expand upon Sudetenland's declaration, here are some “looney-tunes birther” quotations:

My assumption and my understanding is that if you are born of American parents, you are naturally a natural-born American citizen, Chertoff replied. That is mine, too, said Leahy.

From the Senate Resolution 511 hearings in the Sen. Judiciary Committee, a resolultion signed by every US Senator in April 2008. The hearings were the Democratic effort to provide cover for McCain's candidacy, since having McCain as a candidate would necessarily silence Republicans, who would face Hillary if Republicans said a word about eligibility. That is why the sponsors of both SR 511 and the prior, Feb 2008, Senate Bill S.2678, Children of Military Families Natural Born Citizen Act were Democrat Obama supporters, S.2678 by McCaskill and Obama, and SR511 by McCaskill, Leahy, Coburn, Obama, Clinton, and Webb (a couple of Republicans added, since they were all complicit). SB.2678 failed to pass. It would have failed judicial review, since Congress cannot interpret the Constitution.

From the WaPo ‘Fact-Checker’ column by Michael Dobbs in May 2008, Dobbs addressing the Larry Tribe (Obama’s Harvard adviser and con. law professor) and Ted Olson letter to the SR 511 McCain ‘whitewash committee’ - the Senate Judiciary committee:

"They argue that McCain is a natural born citizen because the United States exercised sovereignty over the Panama Canal at the time of his birth on August 29, 1936, he was born on a U.S. military base, and both of his parents were U.S. citizens. The Olsen-Tribe opinion is available here.

From the Author of the 14th Amendment, Congressman John Bingham, in his address to the house prior to voting on the Amendment:

I find no fault with the introductory clause [S 61 Bill], which is simply declaratory of what is written in the Constitution, that every human being born within the jurisdiction of the United States of parents not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty is, in the language of your Constitution itself, a natural born citizen ."

From Chief Justice Morrison Waite whose court was unanimous in establishing common-law as ‘held’ precedent in Minor v. Happersett, 88 US 162 (1875), needing the only constitution definition of any class of citizen before 1868 (14 Amendment) to prove his assertion that Mrs. Minor, born to citizen parent on our soil, did not gain voting rights from the 14th Amendment's ‘equal protections’ clause:

“The Constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that. At common-law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives, or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners.”

Important, since so few, including our ‘conservative’ pundits appear to have read the Constitution, is Waite's “At common-law...” statement. The Constitution explicitly avoids definitions. While he won't openly address it. read Mark Levin's book, ‘Liberty and Tyranny’ beginning p37. Hamilton describes the propriety of, and necessity for interpreting the Constitution in the language familiar to its authors. Hamilton said “What a metamorphosis would be produced in the code of law if all its ancient phraseology were to be taken in its modern sense.” There are dozens, probably hundreds of such statements by framers and justices explaining why there are not definitions in the Constitution, and why it was written assuming that interpretation of terms would come from the common language and common-law of its framers, as Waite explained.

Finally,a citation in fact, from another ‘looney birther’, one clear not in good graces with his excellency Barack, Chief Justice John Marshall, who was also a founder, and a framer of the Constition. This statement is not repeated by ‘loony birthers’ often because Waite's restatement of the definition cited by Marshall, and from Vattel, established the common-law as positive law, and the Obots unanimously screech “Dictum,” “Dictum!” Justice Marshall's comment is certainly dictum, since in this fascinating citizenship case, the citizenship issue appearing so often in the courts during the post-Revolution division of spoils, inheritance battles, resolving differences between states still being governed by parts of English Common Law. Marshall, with whose Marbury v. Madison decision Barack appears unfamiliar also said, in his contribution to The Venus, 12 US 253, (1814):

The citizens are the members of the civil society; bound to this society by certain duties, and subject to its authority, they equally participate in its advantages. The natives or indigenes are those born in the country of parents who are citizens. Society not being able to subsist and to perpetuate itself but by the children of the citizens, those children naturally follow the condition of their fathers, and succeed to all their rights.



The Obots argued endlessly about the English translations of ‘indegines’ used by Marshall, probably due to Marshall's using the origintal French version of Vattel's Law of Nations, then by far the most cited legal reference in American jurisprudence (Grotian Society Papers s, 1972, F.S. Ruddy). But Justice Waite eliminated the confusion in his Minor precedent by making the terms equivalent - “natives or natural born citizens”. This is, as Waite pointed out, the “never doubted” common law. But “looney birthers” are simply too mired in the ancient history to realize that to be a happy and prosperous nation it is time to appreciate what Barack told us before he became a candidate for the presidency, that “A doctrine of negative liberties does not allow me to do the things for society that I believe it needs.” He wanted a new bill of rights. The legitimate interpretations of the musty old Constitution would now emanate from the Center for American Progress, whose minions scrubbed twenty six Supreme Court decisions of their citations to Minor v. Happersett, and, with Googles help, pointed web queries first to their handywork at justia.com and Cornell.

Rubio has found himself in a web created by crony capitalist Republicans. They believed more in McCain's long experience covering up corruption including his Keating Five experience, covered up like Obama's ineligibility, with the able assistance of the media. Both sides were complicit so they sacrificed a a player, leaving the knight in play. For Obama they sacrificed a seldom used provision of the Constitution, and want to use Rubio to protect them lest a constitutionalist gain power in the executive and put them all in jeapordy. Susanna Martinez is, from what this writer has seen, presidential material. Hispanics are not maleable pawns, though promises to illegals might be real motive behind using Rubio, even if he were eligibile. Amending the Constitution is legitimate; ignoring it is not, and may constitute, using the only term defined in the Constitution itself, treason.

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